A young man at the side bench was working one of a row of presses. It was about three feet high with a crossbar at the top, weighted at one end with a black iron ball. They watched as their uncle spun the bar round and there came a thud from below. Turning the bar back round he extracted something from the flat jaws of the machine and held it out to them. Margaret saw a dull piece of metal, but when she looked closely it was stamped with an intricate floral pattern.

‘Don’t go near them presses,’ Eb warned, before she could comment. ‘You want to mind your heads. I’ve ’ad a few knocked out cold in my time. Now – these two lads are my apprentices. Tom, here –’ he indicated the boy at the press – ‘and that young feller over there –’ Another boy was seated at the end of the table. He kept his head down, sawing at something which he held pressed against a sliver of wood fixed above the curved bench. The saw was about six inches long, its teeth so fine that all they could see was a thin strip of wire.

‘He’s learning how to use a piercing saw,’ Eb said. ‘In six months he’ll be able to turn any shape I ask ’im. Now – see this?’ He bent and pointed out through one of the grimy windows at the side of the building.

Margaret looked out to see a wall ahead of them. She was not sure what she was supposed to be looking at.

‘All these works’ve got as many windows in as you can get,’ Eb said. ‘And see them tiles, all along the wall there?’

The tiles, though lightly covered in soot, were a creamy colour beneath, giving off a soft gleam.

‘Glazed, see? You put tiles like that opposite the windows – brings more light into the room. Now – along this side, we’ve got cutting and stamping machines.’ He waved an arm as if this was all the explanation needed. Margaret saw blanks of flat shapes lying on the workbenches – the oval beginnings of brooches, cut in wafer-thin metal.

‘We do plated gold and pure gold – mostly nine and eighteen carat.’ Seeing Annie’s frown, he said, ‘Gold’s too soft to work well, you see, until you’ve heated it and mixed it with another metal. Twenty-four carat’s pure, one hundred per cent gold. Eighteen carat’s seventy-five per cent gold with a bit of silver or copper or zinc mixed in. The colour depends on what you mix it with – you mix gold and copper and you get a rosy pink colour. Mix it with silver and it’s a white gold. The nine carat’s thirty-seven and a half per cent. Got it?’ He grinned at their serious faces.

‘You mean, it’s more than sixty per cent not gold, but you still call it gold?’ Annie said rather severely.